America, You Should Be Ashamed

First there's Thanksgiving--the holiday where Americans are supposed to take the day to feast and reflect on all we're thankful for. Then comes "Black Friday"--the day we're all supposed to get up at 3am to start the holiday buying frenzy. You know, because we're in a recession and everyone's either lost half their net worth, their job, or their house--or two or more of the three--and we are all supposed to go spend a ton of money we don't have to fix the economy.

These patriotic citizens were SO enthusiastic in their pursuit of righting the economy by spending money at Walmart that they collectively killed an employee.

This is my favorite paragraph in the story:

A Wal-Mart worker was killed Friday after "out-of-control" shoppers desperate for bargains broke down the doors at a 5 a.m. sale. Other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and customers shouted angrily and kept shopping when store officials said they were closing because of the death, police and witnesses said.

I could say a lot more but will let you savor the story yourselves.

Excellent Thing One Million and One About Facebook

If you read this blog you know of my love for/obsession with Augusten Burroughs. If you don't read this blog: I LOVE Augusten Burroughs and am obsessed with him. The ONLY negative thing I have to say about him is that his website is an absolute usability cluster fuck--I must say that it's quite possibly the worst website I've ever seen. The only one that I can think of that may be worse is Ass Matrix--a totally crude site so I'm not sullying my blog by linking to it (if you're thinking of checking it out and are reading this at work, I'd advise you to wait until you're home because it is sort of, um, pornographic--but hilarious).

At any rate, I was checking his page out to see if he has a blog--the jury is still out on that one because I can't tell if what's on there is actually a blog--and saw that he says he'll answer questions on his Facebook page.

Naturally I went to find his page and can't believe it--he honestly does interact on a regular basis with his fans. I'm sorry but in what other way would millions of people be able to have direct access to an author and/or celebrity (he is, of course, both) on an ongoing basis? Maybe, MAYBE you could be lucky enough to have him come to your town and do a reading or something ONCE and get him to answer a question, but otherwise--forget it. Now you can go on Facebook, ask whatever you want, praise him, whatever--and he is there, in all his awesomeness, responding to people?

Score another point for social media.

I'm Baack!

Geez, long time no post. I was away on a business trip--the good part of which was that I was with my sister, Cassie. It was fun to work a meeting again--I hadn't done one in a few years. This was a convention with 12,500 attendees--probably at least 10,000 of whom were young 20-something girls who all looked like J Crew models. I definitely felt 40. Luckily, I got home Saturday night and Sunday at 5 pm was Botox.

Remember my strip mall Botox doctor, the one who wanted me to do marketing for him in exchange for free treatments? Unfortunately it turned out that what any intelligent person could have told me was true: strip mall Botox is no good. He may as well have been injecting saline that maybe sat next to Botox during shipping, because it lasted all of about a month--if that. So it was back to the regular Botox party with the guy who uses enough to render your face expressionless for a good 4-6 months.

For the uninitiated, a Botox party is when you get together a group of ladies and all get injections together--it's cheaper that way because the doctor doesn't have to open a vial to shoot up one person then have to waste the rest. The funny part to me is that half the women there don't tell their husbands they get Botox. They all had to come up with stories about why they were running out for an hour and a half at 5 pm on a Sunday night. That and then showing up at home with a bunch of little welts all over their faces. Not to mention $400 missing from the checking account. But I digress...all I know is that my wrinkles are vanishing as I type this.

Speaking of you, Cassie--did you know I tagged you to do 5 fun facts about yourself? Better get to work on that; even Penelope Trunk responded.

And speaking of Penelope Trunk--who, yes, I blog about almost as much as I blog about Stuff White People Like and Augusten Burroughs--had a good post last week that dovetails with this post and my last one.

Stand By Your Man...So He Can Step Over You When He Leaves You Destitute?

If you read this blog you know I'm big on forming opinions and recommending books before I've read them. In that vein, I'm about to have an aneuyurism about this book before I've read it so naturally need to blog about it.

I'm still reading Leslie Bennett's The Feminine Mistake and am even more obsessed with it than I was after the first time. I don't see how you can argue with her advice. Granted, it's a bitter pill to swallow--namely, that women shouldn't give up their careers to stay home to raise their kids. It's a message that I'm not entirely comfortable with; after all,I stayed home with my kids for 8 years.

However I am the first to admit that, while am grateful I had that choice for the sake of my kids, I am also the first to admit that Bennetts is right; while it was good for my kids to have had a mom at home with them, ultimately, it's more important to have a mom who is able too keep them in a home--and fed and clothed--in the first place. And you can't do that in the long run if you don't have a job, a pension (or 401k) and enough years in the workforce to accumulate enough Social Security credits to be eligible to receive benefits in your own right when you retire. (After all, can you really bank on the fact that a woman "may be" eligible for Social Security benefits as a result of her husband's work?)

Maybe it's because I was dependent on a man and experienced where that got me that I'm so passionate about this subject. It is incredibly easy to convince yourself that you will never have a financial care in the world as long as your man has a job. After all, millions of women do it, right? But what about the fact that millions of women also get divorced or become widowed?

While most people would never dream of going without car or health or home insurance, women don't think twice about the fact that opting out of the workforce for any appreciable amount of time (or maybe even any time at all) is a far riskier choice than going without insurance. The thing about going without insurance is that it doesn't matter until it matters, at which point it's too late to go back and get that insurance after all. Same with being financially dependent on a man--if you haven't worked in 5, 10 or more years and your husband leaves you or dies--or you leave him--you are, in all likelihood, screwed.

Sure, there's child support. All $384 a month of it in my case. I defy you to provide food and shelter for your kids on that. You get the house, right? Nope--not unless he either gives it to you outright or gives you use and possession for a few years, during which time you probably still have to pay the mortgage. Well, if you have to sell the house you get half the profits, right? Sure--if you actually make a profit--which, in this economic climate isn't anywhere near a given. But he has family money--you get half of that, right? Nope--anything he came into the marriage with is his and his alone and doesn't figure into the 50/50 equation.

Alimony--forget it, as far as being a long-term solution. These days it's restorative alimony only; the law no longer considers women to be incapable of supporting themselves and therefore needing or being eligible to have their ex-husbands support them even after the marriage. And so on...you get my gist. Fine, then--I'll just get a good lawyer and make him pay. Got $50,000 of your own to spend on litigation if you haven't worked in years?

Still think having a man is the only financial plan you'll ever need?

Enter Beside Every Successful Man: A Woman's Guide to Having It All, "...a guide for helping one's man achieve success (and, thus, get one's own in the process)."

I have to stop here and go purchase this book to see if it is actually as ignorant as that little synopsis makes it sound.

Tis the Season

I'm trying to muster up some creativity and/or motivation to write anything at all but am just coming up dry. Winter sucks. I just read some article in the Washington Post about a new treatment for depression using a big magnet; alas, it costs $6,000 to $8,000 and I'm sure insurance doesn't cover it.

Well, since everyone knows that laughter is the best medicine (well, other than Xanax) but I'm too blah to go search for something new and funny, here's one from the Motherwhatnowredux archives:

What's the WPE Quotient on This One?

Those of you who already read this blog know what WPE means (not by virtue of your own parenting, of course); if you're new, WPE = Worst Parent Ever. As opposed to Best Parent Ever. Naturally I am a BPE. Wink.

I've been meaning to blog about this for a while but working, freelancing, writing my other blog, playing computer games--oh, and of course, parenting--take up a lot of time and sadly, Motherwhatnowredux often doesn't get the attention it deserves. It used to be that nobody read Mizz Information so I didn't pay too much attention to it. Now, though, that I'm an official social media nerd, actual social media people read that blog--and even write about it. Or mention me by name (I'm the Maggie you're supposed to tweet congrats to--even though I did nothing but let viral networking do its thing--I'll take the kudos anyway).

Anyway, though, back to my original point: WPE. You've all probably heard of "safe haven" laws that allow true WPE--the ones that put their newborn babies into dumpsters or try to flush them down the toilet--to do the leave-the-baby-in-a-basket-on-the-hospital-steps-and-run without penalty thing. Safe haven laws allow true WPE to become the ultimate BPE--the kind who put the health and safety of their kids above all else.

At least, that's the case if we're talking about newborns. Nebraska, however, says why limit it to newborns? Raising a kid--and, mind you, in Nebraska "kid" means anyone up to the age of 19--is a hard job and sometimes you have to just throw in the towel. That hormonal 12 year-old girl getting on your nerves? Drive her to Nebraska and drop her off at any hospital--no harm, no foul.

My favorite part of this whole story is this quote, by Nebraska Sen. Arnie Stuthman:

“The main interest I have is that it gives the mother or a parent another option of what to do with a child before they do something drastic.”

Drastic like, say, driving the kid to Nebraska and abandoning them forever?

Fock the Vote

I didn't vote.

There, I said it..and believe me, I debated about saying it--or about blogging about it at least. How pathetic is it that in this great free country of ours I seriously had to think twice about making the fact I didn't vote a matter of the public record. We all know the possible ramifications of posting drunken photos of yourself on Facebook or other personal-yet-public acts that could potentially tarnish future job prospects...maybe admitting you're a non-voter is just as bad? Or worse?

I'll tell you this much: people sure have strong feelings about it--just check out the comments on Penelope Trunk's "Did you vote today?" post. Why is it with the issue of voting people feel so free to get in your face and tell you how it's basically a crime not to vote--either a crime or something only a moron wouldn't do? It would never occur to me to care whether or not someone voted--why would anyone care if I do or not?

I didn't specifically mean not to vote--had there not been a line at the polling place this morning I would have cast my vote for Obama (had I voted I would have voted for Obama...so if he doesn't win I guess I'm personally responsible) and gone on with my day. Maybe even gone to get my free donut at Krispy Kreme, some free coffee at Starbucks and then some free ice cream at Ben & Jerry's. But there was a line, so I figured I'd just go back later.

Then I was driving home and it was pouring and I really wasn't feeling the idea of so much as parking my car and walking into the school--let alone waiting in any sort of line. It was then that I realized that if such petty stuff was making me dread going to vote, voting is not actually that important to me. Looking for validation, I logged onto Facebook and searched for "didn't vote" thinking surely there would be some group of thousands of non-voters to justify my decision.

Yes, there is a group: League of Non-Voters...with 85 members. Surely there are more than 85 non-voters to offset the 4,265 members of "Rock the Vote."

All I know is that, as ambivilent as I was about voting, when I read the description on the League of Non-Voters page, I realized it isn't about the lines or the rain--I am actually making a conscious decision not to vote. That description sums up exactly how I feel:

"This group is for everyone who is tired of being sold out by politicians, tired of the "lesser of two evils," the unconscionable lies, the fancy suits and expensive dinners, the photo ops, the cardboard patriotism, the war that neither party will end, and the closed political universe that banishes any real possibility of change...This group is the party against politics and for a truly democratic future."

THAT is a sentiment I would have stood in line to endorse.

I'm writing this post with my phone so if it works I'm going to be super psyched--as will you, readers--because I'll be able to blog even without a computer.

The kids and I are in Chicago visiting my siter and her family. Unfortunately my poor little niece is sick, but at least we got to spend some time together today and hopefully she'll be feeling better tomorrow. Meanwhile the kids and I are at a Holiday Inn and the kids are in hog heaven because I let them watch Stepbrothers. My status as a WPE has now been etched in stone, as a hotel employee came in to set up a cot while we were watching it and it happened to be the part where someone says "fuck" a bunch of times. Great.

Anyway, we're having a fun time-except for my niece being sick. I'm telling you--WPE or not, I must have done at least something right because travelling with the kids--even without Patrick--is a breeze (knock wood). Not one word about "when will we be there?" on plane. In fact, pretty much not one word about anything.

Well, time to hit the sack and get a jump-start on my extra hour of sleep night.